N’Dri T. Assié-Lumumba Editor, Global Comparative Education: Journal of the WCCES President, World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) Professor, Cornell University Ithaca, New York, USA 27 June 2023
As Editor of Global Comparative Education: Journal of the WCCES, I am delighted to present this issue, which constitutes the second of the series of special issues of the Journal. Each special issue will be edified by one or several invited guest editors. This special issue is based on papers presented at the 4th WCCES Symposium, which was hosted by Cornell University (USA) and held virtually through Zoom due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was held from November 18-20, 2021 on the theme Values Education and Emotional Learning: Broader Implications for Holistic Curriculum & Schooling during and beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Participants of the Symposium who presented papers were invited to revise and submit them for consideration in WCCES publications outlets: 1) Global Comparative Education: Journal of the WCCES, 2) in an edited volume of the WCCES-Brill Book Series, or 3) World Voices Nexus: The WCCES Chronicle. The authors of the articles included in this special issue submitted their papers for consideration in the Journal.
This special issue of GCE as well as a forthcoming book out of the 4th symposium are co-edited by Professors Yusef Waghid and Ahoud Alafour. They have titled the special issue Values’ Education, Emotional Learning, and the Quest for Justice in Education. The final list of papers was made following the usual rigorous peer-review process. It is worth mentioning that, likewise, several papers presented during aforementioned symposium have been published in World Voices Nexus: The WCCES Chronicle following the regular peer-review process.
WCCES Symposia have become a regular feature of between-congress events in providing continuity to academic discourse in contributing to past and emerging issues within the comparative education community, as is the case during these tough times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the first Symposium in 2018 hosted by the University of Johannesburg (South Africa) and in 2019 by IBE in Geneva (Switzerland) two books have been published. The 3rd Symposium was held in 2020, 4th Symposium in 2021 and the 5th Symposium was held in November 2022. For the 4th Symposium 18 member societies of WCCES served as co-conveners. A record number of 19 member societies of WCCES served as co-conveners of the 5th Symposium. This level of collaboration accentuates my vision for the Council at the time of my election as its President in 2016, and again in 2019 for a second term, which has extended due to Covid-19 pandemic.
We would continue to publish revised and accepted papers of the 5th symposium in the WCCES Journal, Chronicle and book series towards the XVIII World Congress of WCCES to be held in 2024.
On behalf of WCCES, I express my heartfelt gratitude to Professor Yusef Waghid and Professor Ahoud Alasfour for their unrelenting support always and hard work in editing this special issue.
I wish you good health, safe living in this tumultuous global environment and happy reading.